


Here Comes the Cavalry

by bettername2come



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-09
Updated: 2016-03-09
Packaged: 2018-05-25 14:47:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,856
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6199184
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bettername2come/pseuds/bettername2come
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes Barry and Cisco make terrible life choices. In this case, it results in them being kidnapped by crazy woman with a vendetta against metahumans. Who do you count on when the superheroes are in danger?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Here Comes the Cavalry

**Author's Note:**

> In honor of International Women's Day, here's the girls saving the guys.

It seemed like a simple enough case at first. Missing persons, no signs of foul play. It probably would have gone unsolved if Cisco hadn’t decided to test out his skills on a couple of the victims and found out the one thing that tied them together: all the victims were metahumans.

Not of the supervillain variety, mind you. The worst of the bunch seemed to be the woman who’d used her mind control powers to get out a few speeding tickets. Which, while not cool, certainly paled in comparison to the Zooms and Weather Wizards of the world. But most seemed like normal, average people. Like the girl who used her abilities to make the flowers in her garden grow faster, or the guy using his technopathy to boost his internet speeds. 

Definitely not people who’d earned a spot on the Metahuman Task Force’s Most Wanted. Cisco used his powers to trace the victims’ whereabouts, but he couldn’t get a clear picture. He did manage to figure out that all the victims had disappeared in the same neighborhood. 

“It’s not enough for a warrant, Cisco,” Joe had warned him. “We can search the neighborhood, but no suspicious activity has been reported. Whoever’s making these metas disappear is doing a good job at it.” 

“I’m just saying. Maybe if I go in, I can get a vibe and-” 

“No, Cisco. You’re not a cop. You don’t need to go in on this. Let us do our job.” 

So Cisco did what anyone would do – ignored Joe and went straight to Barry. 

“This looks like a job for The Flash.” 

“Why can't this be a job for Vibe?” 

“Because I haven’t figured out how to do that blasty move yet,” Cisco said, throwing out a hand to see if it would work this time. No luck. “I get a vibe on the bad guy, or gal, you whoosh them out of there. No harm, no foul.” 

Which was all well and good until they’d sat down in the first house of their investigation, asked if they'd noticed anyone strange in the neighborhood and taken the nice unassuming lady up on her offer of a cup of coffee. Cisco’s memory got a little blurry after that. 

Next thing he knew, he was waking up next to Barry in a cell that looked oddly similar to the ones in the STAR Labs pipeline, only without the homey feeling Cisco strived for. _Yep, this was a serial killer basement._

He reached over and shook Barry. “Hey, man, wake up.” No response. “Dude, get up!” He reached out and slapped Barry across the face. 

Barry groaned, rolling over as he rubbed his cheek. “For real? Can you guys seriously not think of a better way to wake me up?” 

“I’ll pass your concerns along to the team,” Cisco said. “Dude, look around. This is not good.” 

Barry stood up and nodded resolutely. “Okay. Okay, I got this.” 

“Barry, I don’t think that’s a good – “ SMACK! “ – idea.” 

“Yep, my speed’s gone,” Barry said. 

“I tried to tell you that. How else do you think you got knocked out by drugged coffee?” 

Barry leaned forward, studying the glass. “These look almost exactly like the cells in the pipeline. Do you think you could…” 

Cisco shook his head. “No. I made sure of it. They can’t be opened from the inside, even by me.” 

“Why did you do that?” 

“Uh, because Rainbow Raider is on the loose and the last thing we need is an evil Vibe running around Central City.” 

“So you do have a nickname,” came a voice from the corner. Both guys jumped at the sound. “I was wondering.” The woman standing in the doorway held up the two wallets she had taken. “Francisco Ramon and Bartholomew Allen. I’d go for a codename too.” She moved closer. “So tell me, gentlemen. Does the CCPD know they have metahumans working in their department?” 

* 

Cisco and Barry’s absence probably would have gone unnoticed a lot longer if not for the apartment building that caught fire on 12th Street. The call went out across the city, the kind of thing that normally would have caught The Flash’s attention. Only he was nowhere to be found. Iris was assigned the story, and immediately tried to follow up with her dad. 

Joe had seen him leave with Cisco a few hours earlier. They hadn’t said where they were headed, but Cisco had a theory about someone abducting metahumans. 

“And you’re just telling me this now?” Iris said, grabbing her phone and calling Caitlin as she headed to STAR Labs. 

“Have you heard from Cisco?” Iris asked as she got into her car. 

“No, he disappeared from here a few hours ago. Why?” 

“I think he and Barry are in trouble. Dad says Cisco was following a lead on potential metahuman abductions.” 

“And you think he and Barry got too close and got themselves captured.” 

“It’s not like it’d be the first time they got kidnapped by a supervillain.” 

Caitlin sighed. “I’m turning on GPS in the suit. If they were following a lead on a case, it’s probably not too far from him.” 

* 

“Listen, lady, I don’t know what you think you’re doing, but – “ 

“I think I’m capturing the man responsible for bringing a lot of unnecessary pain to the city. Let’s call this a citizen’s arrest.” 

“In order to do a citizen’s arrest, someone has to have committed a crime,” Barry said. “This is a kidnapping.” 

“You don’t call murder a crime, Flash? Your standards are slipping.” 

“Murder? I didn’t murder anyone.” 

“And he’s also not The Flash,” Cisco said. 

“Right. That too.” 

Their kidnapper picked up a duffle bag and removed the Flash suit from it. “Really? Cause this was in your van. It looks about your size.” 

“That’s – that’s circumstantial evidence at best.” 

“Really, dude?” Cisco whispered. He turned back to the woman. “The Flash isn’t a murderer. He saves people.” 

“Including the people who got sucked into a vortex when a hole opened above the city?” 

“I – “ 

“My sister was one of those people. If your particle accelerator hadn’t exploded, if you hadn’t made that wormhole open up, then she would still be here.” 

“I never meant for anyone to get hurt,” Barry said, dropping what remained of his cover. 

“Doesn’t matter what you meant. It just matters what happened.” 

“And what about you? Kidnapping people who haven’t hurt anyone. Did you kill them?” 

“Of course not,” the woman said, and to her credit she seemed genuinely offended by the accusation. “They’re somewhere safe. Where their powers can’t hurt anyone. At least until I can find way to disable their powers permanently.” 

“FYI, it’s not as easy as you’d think,” Cisco said. “They people you took, they haven’t hurt anyone. They’re innocent.” 

“For now. It’s only a matter of time before someone else gets – “ 

She didn’t get a chance to finish because at that moment a baseball bat went sailing up against the side of her head and she crumpled to the ground. 

“Are you guys okay?” Iris asked, gripping the bat in her hands. “Did she have partners?” 

“No, it was just her,” Cisco said. “Does she have a key? Get us outta here.” 

“Wait, are you telling me that you guys got captured by one tiny, _normal_ woman?” Caitlin asked. 

“She’s got some kind of anti-meta tech around the house,” Barry said. “Our powers didn’t work.” 

“So let’s get this straight. You know there’s a villain targeting metas, and you’re first instinct is to go undercover, without backup to investigate them,” Caitlin said. 

Cisco sighed. “Are you gonna open the cage or not?” 

“No, seriously, let’s think about this,” Iris said, leaning against the wall. “Let’s say I’m a metahuman –hating vigilante. And two cops come to the door. Except, huh, they’re not regular detectives. It’s the CSI/owner of STAR Labs, and the scientific advisor on metahumans who works for STAR Labs. Nothing suspicious there, right, Caitlin?” 

“Mm-mm,” Caitlin said, shaking her head. 

“They’re not gonna open the cage,” Barry said. 

Iris ignored him and moved on. “And so ‘The Fastest Man Alive’ and ‘I’m Damn Near Omniscient When I Wear My Freaking Goggles’ decide to walk into a suspect’s house unarmed, and get locked in a supervillain’s basement jail. What does that sound like?” 

“It sounds like really shoddy detective work.” 

“And even worse superheroics, considering you actually are superheroes,” Iris said. 

Caitlin shook her head. “Oliver and Diggle don’t walk into traps this easily.” 

“Yes, but if they did, I think Felicity and Lyla would _let them out of the cage_ ,” Cisco insisted. 

“We could always just leave,” Caitlin said, turning to Iris. 

“It’s happy hour at Jitters. Two for one lattes?” 

“Caitlin, no. Bad Caitlin.” 

“Iris, please.” 

“Francisco Ramon, if you ever do anything that reckless again, you are going to wish you were still on Earth-2 because Killer Frost’s wrath will be nothing compared to mine, do you understand me?” 

And maybe, just maybe, Cisco started checking her lips to see if they were turning blue. “Yes. I hear you.” 

“Did she just ‘Francisco’ you? Dude, she must be mad.”

Iris's eyes grew colder. “You really want to go there, _Bartholomew_?” 

Barry gulped. “No, ma’am.” 

Iris smiled. “Good.” She reached over and hit a button on the side of the cage, making the glass door slide open. “Did that turn your powers back on?” 

Barry made a run for it, coming back a moment later in his suit and mask. “My speed’s back.” He took off running again and came back a moment later with five annoyed and slightly disheveled metahumans. “All right, everyone here agree not to turn to a life of supervillainy at this moment so we can all go home?” 

A murmur went through the group that seemed to say yes. 

“What are we going to do with her?” Cisco asked, gesturing towards the unconscious woman on the floor. “She knows your identities. If she gets out of jail, she’ll probably come for everyone here again.” 

“Let me take care of that,” one of the metas said as she stepped forward. She leaned down to speak to the kidnapper. “Hey, psycho!” She yelled in her ear, making the other woman sit up groggily. 

“See, even that is a better alternative to being slapped awake.” 

“Quiet, Flash,” Cisco said. 

“Hey, look at me,” the meta said. “What happened to your family was an accident. A tragic accident, but there’s no one to blame. You’re going to disassemble this equipment and get rid of it, and you’re going to forget the identities of all the people you’ve brought here and never go after them again.” 

“Never go after them again,” the kidnapper mumbled. 

“Very good,” the meta said, straightening back up. “She shouldn’t be a threat anymore.” 

“That is a really useful power,” Cisco said. “Can I interest you in a clever nickname?” 

“No thanks. I leave those to the professionals. For now, I think I’ll just head home. Don’t follow me.” 

“Wouldn’t dream of it.” 

“Of course not.” 

“Couldn’t if I wanted to.”


End file.
